State voter registrations at record high / New deadline may delay count of absentees

Greg Lucas, John M. Hubbell, Chronicle Staff Writers

Published
4:00 am PDT, Friday, October 29, 2004

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2004-10-29 04:00:00 PDT Sacramento -- A record 16.5 million California residents have registered to vote and about 73 percent of them will cast ballots in Tuesday's election, according to figures released by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.

County election officials are still processing tens of thousands of registration cards, which could cause a delay in counting a record number of absentee ballots that are being cast and leave some close contests undecided Tuesday night.

Local election officials have issued 4.5 million absentee ballots -- shattering the record of 3 million requests made in the 2000 presidential election. The total number of voters expected to cast ballots is 12 million, another record.

"Californians seem to be shrugging off the indifference of the presidential campaigns for this state and taking this election as seriously --

The surge in registration -- and a recent law that allows voters to register as late as 15 days before an election -- has a price.

Local election officials say enrolling new voters has meant less time to process absentee ballots that are already being returned to registrars.

"Fewer absentee ballots will be put into the count on election night. Normally by election night, only 20 percent of the absentees are left uncounted. I would imagine this year that number will be closer to 50 percent, " said ConnyMcCormack, Los Angeles County registrar and president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.

Around the Bay Area, voter registration officials said record demand for absentee ballots could affect the speed at which the outcomes of close races are revealed.

Alameda County officials said they have issued nearly 250,000 absentee ballots -- almost double the old record. Nearly 89,000 have already been returned. County registrar Brad Clark said he hopes to have 100,000 absentee ballots counted by election night.

A late crush of absentees "could make a difference in some local contests, because I don't anticipate having all the ballots counted for about two weeks after the election," Clark said.

Clark said he also expected a high number of provisional ballots to be cast due to a high number of last-minute voter registrations. A provisional ballot is not counted until a voter's identity and registration status is confirmed.

This is the first year voters had until 15 days before the election to register. In previous elections, the deadline was 29 days before the election.

Nearly 1 million people added themselves to voter rolls in the 45 days before the Oct. 18 registration deadline. More than 1.5 million new voters registered since the March 2 primary.

McCormack said Los Angeles County election workers are pulling double shifts, working from 6 a.m. to midnight to place as many new voters as possible on the rolls before a midnight tonight deadline. An average of 19,000 new voters are input each day.

Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, said 20 percent of the voters surveyed in his latest poll, completed Wednesday night, reported that they had already voted.

"That's huge," DiCamillo said. "We've never had 20 percent of voters saying they've already voted. I think 10 percent was probably the previous record. And it's not just that absentee voting is more popular, which it is, but it's that voters are so engaged and so passionate about their candidate for president, they want to vote early."

Shelley's prediction of 73 percent of registered voters going to the polls would be one of the highest turnouts in 20 years. Turnout was about 75 percent in 1992. In the last presidential election, it was just under 71 percent.

Contra Costa County Registrar Steve Weir, pausing from a telephone interview to throw back two ibuprofen tablets, said Thursday that the county has registered 508,271 voters, and had up to 4,000 left to process before Tuesday.

Officials there have seen a sharp increase in absentee ballot applications, from 129,000 in the 2000 presidential election to 184,275 this year. More than 88,000 have already been returned.

Also notable: a huge boost in the number of Americans abroad casting ballots in the county, a rise from 116 to 1,772. Ballots of deployed military personnel have also jumped up from about 200 to 800.

Military registration has tended to lean Republican, and overseas voters have tended to be Democrat by a 2-1 margin, Weir said.

Solano County elections manager Deborah Seiler said her office has been "swamped" by last-minute voter registration cards but had largely finished processing them.

"It's like the 500-year flood," she said. "We're at 195,049 voters. That's an all-time high for us."

In Marin County, assistant registrar Madelyn DeJusto was casting a weary eye on six bags of voter mail that foretold a weekend's worth of work.

Compared to the March primary, registration has moved up more than 10,000 voters to 152,658, and absentee balloting had climbed more than 34,000 to 76, 821. Of those, she said, about 38,000 have already been returned.

DeJusto said Marin County also has seen the amount of overseas non- military ballots skyrocket from an average of 200 to 300 to this year's total of 1,140.

San Francisco County Registrar John Arntz said voter registration had moved up slightly less than 200 from the 2000 presidential election to 486,822, but the increase pushed the number to an all-time high.

Of 145,000 requested absentee ballots, about 58,000 have been returned.